Donald Trump appears to have abandoned plans to investigate the spurious link between childhood immunisations and autism, a move welcomed by experts but condemned by Robert F Kennedy Jr, a vaccine sceptic.

The son of former US attorney general Bobby Kennedy met Trump in New York during the presidential transition in January last year and announced that he had been asked to chair a commission to review vaccine safety.

Then, a year ago this week, Kennedy told reporters he had met “many times” with members of Trump’s transition team, “trading documents about what the commission would look like”. But little has been heard of the plan since then.

“I would say there’s zero progress,” Kennedy told the Guardian last week. “We were told President Trump wanted to meet directly with us. Not only did nothing happen, they’ve cut off all communication with people who care about this issue. The administration has decided to go in another direction.”

Kennedy, 64, has had no contact with the White House for at least six months and made no secret of his dismay. “I’ve seen a tremendous deflation among a community of parents and children’s health advocates across the country who believed the promises that President Trump made to the campaign, who put tremendous faith in him and now are feeling enormous betrayal and disappointment.”

Childhood vaccines have been linked to autism by activists despite multiplescientific studies around the world proving that incorrect. Trump was willing to fan the flames. In 2012 he tweeted: “Massive combined inoculations to small children is the cause for big increase in autism.” During a 2015 Republican primary debate, he claimed that a child of some of his employees of his had become autistic after getting vaccinated.

Kennedy describes himself as “pro-vaccine” but has campaigned against the use of thimerosal, a preservative used in vaccines made from mercury, and launched a group called the World Mercury Project, backed by anti-vaxxers. He argues that parents should choose whether their children are vaccinated.

In 2005 Kennedy wrote an article for Rolling Stone magazine and Salon claiming that the government was conspiring to cover up the connections between autism and thimerosal. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), there is no evidence of harm caused by thimerosal, which has not been used in vaccines for children since 2001 but is still used in some flu vaccines. Rolling Stone and Salon later retracted the article.

Kennedy blamed the president’s shift on high-level “corruption” tying the administration to the pharmaceutical industry, which he claims has historically blocked research into vaccine safety to protect its own interests.

“Much of what happens in this administration is obscure so there hasn’t been transparency,” he said. Read more here.

Comments

@Keeli

Why did Trump appoint pro-vax leaders to HHS (Tom Price, Alex Azar), FDA (Scott Gottlieb), and CDC (Brenda Fitzgerald). He had the power to appoint anyone he wanted. Why did he appoint Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court (in an appellate decision, J. Gorsuch ruled against a family who had a child with autism).

Heartbreaking to wait? How long do you think it will be? How many more children will suffer vaccine injury?

Mr Trump has only been in office a year and the establishment have caused all hell to break loose. To expose the vaccine conspiracy will take more than one man, he needs ethical people around him. I know its heart braking to wait but if he did it now not only would it be crushed he might not even come out of it alive. He needs to get the corruption in the government under control before he can do something like that. I think he will but unfortunately I think its impossible to do right now. He is doing everything else he said he would and I believe he will do this but to do it now when he has hardly any government support even in his own part and so much corruption in the government in general I think its impossible. The'll be at least another supreme judge appointed and I think that will be crucial. Personally I think he will bring it in through the back door and the courts. The problem is that if the US government admits to misleading the people of the world how many countries will sue the USA????? There will be such an outcry the world over when the deception is finally revealed. I cant imagine what the implications will be. We need to keep chipping away, weakening the drug companies influence and rescuing as many children as we possibly can from the vaccine scourge.

@Reader - "I think Trump has had even bigger fish to fry than vaccine damage"

Really? Right now the rate is 1 in 36 (or 1 in 48 according to the CDC). A child is diagnosed with autism every 20 minutes. The majority of those on the spectrum will need lifetime care and support
I don't see how ANYTHING can be more important than the loss of a generation.

@Annie - "it may just be possible he is biding his time to rub the left's nose in the fact that the science actually IS on his side on this issue."

Really? Biding his time. Glad the kids can wait. How many kids will be irretrievably damaged while he bides his time. He doesn't have to wait for the science. The science is there. All he has to do is publicize it. He doesn't need Congress - he doesn't need the media - he can always tweet. He tweets about everything else.

Yes, I'm furious that no one does anything, not the left, not the right, not Trump. I'm furious that no one says anything (except a few independent journalists) - not the right wing media, not the left wing media, not the mainstream, the alternative, not print, TV, Internet, etc.

On the issue of MAGA. It is striking how the US, with the population many times larger than other countries participating at winter Olympics (except for China), is doing relatively poorly with respect to quality of athletes and numbers of medals. Especially American figure skaters are clumsy, falling frequently; they are no match to Russian, Canadian, European, and Japanese or Korean skaters. I believe the principal reason for this failure is massive vaccine induced brain injury of young Americans. They just don’t have intact healthy brains and perfect motoric functions, hence no matter how long and hard they train, they will never be as great as their non injured peers. It is the same what American teachers say now about American students, they are unteachable.
Already a second generation of young Americans is being destroyed by corrupt politicians greedy for money of pharma cartels. America can’t be made great again with such massively brain injured population. This damage is irreversible, unfortunately, sadly, tragically. It is a national disaster. We can’t wait until corrupt, incompetent politicians and bureaucrats on their own stop poisoning our children with toxic vaccines. Without political and economic revolution; they will never do it, as they profit from vaccine blood money. We must try to save the future generations of children by refusing to vaccinate them until vaccines are not 100% safe. And we know this is not possible to achieve.

It is so easy for the CDC and pro vaccine scientists to insist that vaccines do not cause autism. Every one knows that what they are referring to when they use the term autism is the known classic form of this condition for which the cause is well documented and agreed upon. That is how the CDC defend themselves. That is the ‘unassailable’ rock upon which they stand. However, vaccines are proven to cause brain damage and the fact that this neurodevelopmental damage manifests itself in ‘autistic like’ symptoms (and can therefore justifiably be called a form of autism) is also undeniable. I have consistently advocated that ‘vaccines cause autism’ is a phrase that should be avoided. IMO the description Neurological Brain Damage is a far more powerful definition that makes an important distinction which cannot be scientifically argued against.

Well done Robert F Kennedy Jr . Who indicates with needle point accuracy ,what is. The problem ,The Whole Problem,and nothing but, The Problem.
"A lot of what we've seen is analogous to what we've seen on the enviromental landscape ,where the wolves have been put in charge of the henhouse, where industry people have been brought in to essentially dismantle public protections" simple Antecedent- Behaviour - Consequence -[ABC]
Industry standards suffering from a hefty dose of "The Behavious" running Amok.

I would just encourage Mr. Kennedy to keep going. We don’t know when there might be a moment to have a breakthrough that solves this growing issue. I thought we would have had a chance to expose malfeasance in Issa’s congressional hearings, but last minute Brian Hooker was told he would not be allowed to testify. That was quite a blow and so the uphill is now just that much more steep. This community needs to continue to be committed no matter how long it takes. And keep inviting those who seek truth. It’s not all or nothing, it’s one bite at a time.

I'm with Annie. I think Trump has had even bigger fish to fry than vaccine damage, but knows it is a big problem. Pharma has done themselves in with biased, crooked studies. Things might unravel quicker than anyone imagined. We don't know when, but I feel certain it isn't far away.

I don't like this report much...it refers to and stresses that science has proven vaccines do not cause Autism ..which is the Real Bunk. And to include the man who said it begins in the womb not after vaccines.....has become confused...with Kanner's Classic Autism and the vaccine caused me Revressive Autism...which is inreality as included info says, causes an encephalopy ...brain damage...which presents behaviors like the Classic Autism. He, whoever, is didging the fact that this occurs ...Only in children and only ones who have had vaccinations. Unless he's trying to claim a Pandemic in DNA of parents of children with autism...which science Does prove can Not happen. Without the connection of children and vaccines, there is No occurance of Autism known as Regressive Autism, a Caused Autism. And No deaths in older children caused by a vaccine for sexually contracted diseases.

People who continue to find excuses for Trump doing nothing about vaccines are just fooling themselves. Face it, once he was elected, he just didn't give a damn and never will. Aim your constructive efforts elsewhere.
and mental health issues have been on the table for a long time. Besides missing all the signs for this one person in Florida, the SPED classes have increased by huge numbers and if you read Anne Dachel every day, you will see the media says nothing about ASD in relation to this issue. They still consider our kids as having a mental disorder as opposed to neurological and biomedical. I fear the hatchet will come down on our kids with all the schools hiring psychologists and psychiatrists into the school systems. The media continues to state that all the mental health issues with these kids are from home trauma. Shame on you parents for making your kids crazy with autism.

My "conspiracy theory" hope regarding President Trump and the reality of vaccine induced autism is that he believes this issue to be the ace up his sleeve. He takes so much heat regarding his "Birther" and "Global warming is a Chinese hoax" positions from the left that it may just be possible he is biding his time to rub the left's nose in the fact that the science actually IS on his side on this issue.

I seem to recall that often hope carries with is a measure of audacity.

Thank you for this update. I wondered if there was any support for Kennedy from the Trump administration, and am not surprised to hear there's none. Governments are often full of politicians who are bought or just not up to the challenge. However, I believe there are a few good politicians (of any party) who might help (in a small or big way) if they could get interested in taking an in-depth look into any of the many problems surrounding vaccination (including coercion, vaccine adjuvants, tainted/inadequate studies, and vaccine profit margins that are undisclosed). Fighting the corruption means stopping the flow of money. That's why I support campaign finance reform; ethic reforms (including state and local governments); calling for an end to advertising of prescription drugs, medical devices and vaccines; and asking "non-profits" like AAP (etc.) to drop all donations from pharmaceutical companies.

By not talking or being allowed to criticize or having no dialect over matters as we all know, helps nobody and the vaccine autism cause will end up intellectually obtuse. In my opinion it will be a long time before Trump gets thrown under the bus. Pharma is the biggest killing beast of all modern times genocide on a world-wide industrial scale. As written before -The CDC budget 2018 cuts approx. 1.2 Billion dollars and 82% directly at cutting vaccines, to me, this show`s he has started tackling the vaccine issue and where it hurts most in Pharma`s pocket , I also agree he could do more. Whoever wrote Kennedys nephews speech also styled it on Obama`s speech`s in style, word for word a bit embarrassing I thought coming from a family who are known for trailblazing when it comes to speeches was the young Kennedy stitched up..

Blast from the past

“Clinton collected $336,416 in donations from the pharma/health industry, over a third of the total contributions during the 2016 presidential campaign. The next biggest recipient was Republican candidate Jeb Bush, who collected less than half the amount of Clinton. Trump received a whopping $1001 – enough to buy one Daraprim pill.

These donations don’t include the big money corporations spend on lobbying Congress as well. For example, Pfizer, one of the largest pharmaceutical companies, spent more than $10 million in lobbying efforts last year. Big Pharma bets on established candidates that they think they can influence once they are in office. Scott Swenson, vice president for communications for Common Cause, a non-profit political watchdog group, says “Established industries and lobbies give primarily to establishment candidates that they perceive will be leaders and eventual nominees.”https://www.geopolitica.ru/en/news/hillary-clinton-rolling-big-cash-big-pharma

If we're going to support Kennedy ripping Trump on vaccines, we should expect Kennedy to rip Chuck Schumer. And Bernie Sanders. And Lizzie Warren. And Cory Booker. Instead, we get RFK tweeting the political prospects of his relatives while drawing useless global warming parallels. The vaccine problem is not going to be fodder for him to boost his dynasty or left-wing causes. Anybody like JB who censors criticism of Kennedy for doing that is doing the work of the vaccine people.

Mental illness has become a major issue in this last school shooting.
I am not for sure which way, or how it will all go down?

IS this the beginning of something?
President Trump made it a major point among all of this horrible mess; that it is all about mental illness.
Have we begun?
Once it begins; how will it play out?

Will it lead to more problems for our families that have had issues with mental health?
Or will it lead to real, wide eye opening shocking awareness? Even help for us and not a hindrance?

Will it lead to awareness that vaccines can cause encephalopathy which cause brain damage, and years later shows up as a mental illness. It is not all about autism either.

I am also sure that most of us here are more than aware that Pharmaceuticals are very involved in making things many times worse with unpredictable results from their products of mood controllers. We in the know; know that we did not know bipolar was present until Prozac made it known. LOL. --- And ohhh! The deep depression from the withdrawal of that very same stuff was much worse than anything that would have happened naturally to us. We in the know now also know that we got caught up in pain clinics too. I now know that too much of those pain clinics wares, will cause even a stable mind to bend and break. That then lead us all again to that hellish withdrawal from them too.

Will awareness fix the two above problems? Will we finally become aware that our immune systema are linked to mental health?|

Do you all think that it might just be an easy link between vaccines to mental illness (period).

I keep thinking on the on going frustrating IACC show, and the unreasonable hard work that those leading the IACC meetings did to keep it all about genetics. Was it not just strange that they would not even allow nothing- nothing- nothing on "ANY" environmental causes. The closest we got was every body's whipping boy "Dirty coal" and homes near roads, and even those they trotted fast by. Tom Insel, was so very good at being a slippery slimy politician in all of this.

Maybe; the link between mental health, the immune system, drugs, and vaccines will turn out to be so easy that we are left wondering how it could have ever been hard. Was it that hard?

I sure do hope so, cause I am a bit crazy myself here in the last few years. Is this a natural form of grief or mental illness that occurs from delayed justice. I find myself praying a great deal. I pray like the Catholics do on rosary beads. Each seed I put into the ground, I pary. I pray with each stroke of a sweep of a broom, any repetitious movement I make; I pray.

Perhaps you are right, NanNJ, that bold attack on pharma is s second term issue. But Trump must realize that with young people so dramatically damaged by toxic vaccines, his whole MAGA PROJECT will be a mega failure. Because most young people in the US are now brain damaged to some degree, US is lacking healthy normal candidates to be pilots (thousands are missing), soldiers (the same), physicians, even plumbers, electricians etc. And each year the situation is getting worse. If he can't take down the criminal pharma now, he at least could issue a decree making nationally all vaccines voluntary and prohibiting any vaccine pressure on the parents . Moreover, he should abolish the legal immunity given to vaccine manufacturers for selling toxic and genocidal products.

1) The article is filled with grotesque falsehoods. 2) He's a grandfather. My guess is that his kids are up to speed. 3) Ben Carson and Rand Paul, who stood with him on this during the debates, are still around.

I wish he would visit with Kennedy more, but let's not fool ourselves, if he wants to win reelection, this will have to be a 2nd term issue. He would have very little chance at winning reelection if he took this issue up now. Unfortunately.

We were told President Trump wanted to meet directly with us. Not only did nothing happen, they’ve cut off all communication with people who care about this issue.

As I wrote previously, I consider Trump feels he needs pharma to MAGA by delivering a strong economy, and not rocking the boat. He is no JFK or MLK who had the moral fortitude to make the 'tough' but right calls that invariable led to making America great. The Trimp ship is bound to hit rock, and then everyone will see what a great pretender he is.